


When We're Ready

by hops



Series: For Old Time's Sake [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, implied stolen century/TAZ era Taagnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-18 21:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: Magnus and Lucretia try, once again, to reconcile who they are with who they've been. As usual, it doesn't go as planned.Magnus makes a call. Lucretia picks a fight. Merle comes over for tea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, we're kind of about to depart on a bit of a saga, folks. This is the first of many post-canon WIPs I have going. 
> 
> Basically you can kind of read this without context but I highly recommend that you at least be familiar with the events of [a moment of weakness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385219/chapters/25493439), [claim your ghost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11944467), and [know the wine for what it is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947446).
> 
> (Um. Two of those are smutty so... beware lol.) 
> 
> I basically owe all of this (and pretty much my life) to @epersonae and @emi_rose for editing this, and the subsequent pieces, multiple times, AND listening to me ramble and talk through it over and over. Really, this would not be what it is without their help.

She was already asleep when her stone of farspeech rang. The first rings only pulled her from her slumber, and for a moment she considered rolling over and falling back into sleep. But a second call came and inevitably, so did the worry. She reached blindly for the stone beside her bed in the dark, groping at the nightstand until her fingers wrapped around the cool surface, and barely answered it before the last ring. 

“Hello?” she answered, voice thick with sleep. 

“Lucyyy…. Hey.” Magnus. The sound of his voice shook her immediately from her sleepiness. “Hey, I’m sorry to call so late, I just-- I dunno, I was thinkin’ of you and I wanted to saaay hi? That was all.” There was his familiar rambling. Slurring. He was drunk. 

“Hi, Magnus. It’s alright. How are you?” 

He barked out a laugh for seemingly no good reason. “Oh, I’m good, I’m cool cool cool. I’m cool. Everything is good.” 

_ Is it?  _ She wanted to ask, but she didn’t. Maybe he was being genuine. Maybe things were really good. That was what he deserved after everything they had been through. After everything she had put him through. “I’m glad.” 

She resisted the urge to call him Mags. Or honey. Or love. With his memories intact, it was hard to break the habit that she’d tried not to preemptively return to her speech, but it was inevitable. She wanted to believe they were inevitable too, that a century of love would carry them through the subsequent hardships and back to each other, as a tide returning to shore. But so far she’d had no such luck. 

She hadn’t seen him since they’d slept together, and she cried and left and they didn’t talk about it. They still hadn’t talked about it. They hadn’t even spoken since. So a drunk phone call somehow seemed inappropriate and fitting at the same time. 

“Hey, um, can I ask you a--” he hiccupped. He must have been drinking cider. Another automatic intuition that hurt. Muscle memory of a torn tendon, moving on reflex despite the shooting pain. “A question?” 

She sat up in bed. “Yes.” 

“Are you mad at me?” He sounded so vulnerable; it broke her heart. 

“No, no, I’m not mad at you.” 

He was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure? ‘Cause you haven’t talked to me in months and I don’t know what I did and I don’t want to-- I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“I’m sorry. We had just talked about giving some space to think and I assumed that you would reach out when you were ready.” 

He sighed. She could hear some quiet chatter in the background.  _ Where are you?  _ she wanted to ask, but part of her already knew. It was a family dinner she hadn’t been invited to. She heard Taako’s hysterical laugh cut through the other conversations. “I didn’t want to overstep. I was the one who hurt you, it’s not like I-- Magnus, do you want to do this another time? I don’t think…” 

“Why? Why can’t we talk now?” 

_ Please don’t cry.  _ She wasn’t sure if she was begging him or herself. “It’s not that we can’t, this is just a conversation I would rather have in person, and not when you’re around everyone else.” 

She heard him curse under his breath. “You can hear them? I’m so sorry, Lucy, I didn’t mean for you to.” 

He kept calling her by that fucking name. Her voice came out fainter than she wanted it to be. “It’s alright.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” 

It felt like soothing an animal she knew would bite her. But still, she wanted to go to him then and there, hold him close to her chest, run her hand over his hair until he curled around her and slept. Just like it used to be. 

She missed the smell of him. The rumble of his voice in his chest, pressed to her ear. 

“Okay,” he murmured. 

She heard Barry and Lup telling a story in tandem, jumping in over each other. More laughter. She took pause, then took a brave breath in. “You should go back to the party. You can call me tomorrow, if you still want to talk…” 

“I do. I will.” Magnus paused again. “I’m sorry, Luce. I wanted to invite you. I asked Taako but he wouldn’t budge and I--” 

She cut off his drunken ramble. It was getting harder to hide the swell of tears that was rising in her throat. “I understand. It’s his home, and his rules. It’s not your fault.” 

Magnus was crying. Just a little, in the way that most people wouldn’t pick up on. But she knew him and his voice and the tiny things about him that nobody else did. Not even Taako. There was something about that innate knowledge, that century-old intimacy, that soothed her. Even if the rest of their family was trying to forget her once more, she could cling to the hope that Magnus would remember her in the same natural way that she remembered him. 

“I just wanted to see you.” It was the tiniest sniffle that gave him away.

She hardened the lump in her throat into stone as she did so many times at the Bureau, up on her dais, looking at him and keeping herself from falling apart each time. “You can see me. We can see each other soon, if you would like to.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Can I call you tomorrow?” 

She feared the regret that would come for him in the morning. “Sure.” In the twisting part of her heart, she knew the call wouldn’t come. Might as well brace herself now. 

“Cool, cool. Sorry I woke you up. Really.” 

“It’s okay, Mags.” 

It slipped from her on reflex, soft and sweet and terrible. She bit her tongue just to punish herself for it. 

“Okay, I wiiill talk to you then.” 

“Goodnight.” 

She placed the stone down in its place on the table and settled back down into bed, trying to comfort herself with a cocoon of blankets. Or perhaps disappear in them for just a little while. She didn’t sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, he didn’t call. She made herself a cup of tea and tried to shake the exhaustion of her sleepless night. After all, there was still work to be done. Another rebuilding effort to coordinate, another day to spend redistributing resources on behalf of the Bureau. The world didn’t stop for the weight of her baggage; it never had before, why would it now? 

As always, she would have to power through. It was the only thing she’d ever known anyway. Just keep running from the  brewing, ever-present storm and hope that eventually she could overpower, or outsmart, the darkness. She’d done it once before. She’d saved the world. But she wondered if it’d been a fluke, or if it was the only fight she’d ever win. 

There was always a third option. But from here, they all looked grim. 

She spent the morning doing paperwork. There was a lot of bureaucratic work that came with rebuilding, and a lot of it fell on her. Or she just didn’t bother passing the work onto someone else. It was an easy and mindless distraction from everything else in her head, loneliness being the most prominent. She had hoped, in her years as Madam Director, that those nagging lonely and homesick feelings were only symptoms of separation from her family. Maybe in a way they still were. But it was high time to come to terms with those emotions as a permanent condition. 

Despite the tugging ache in her heart every time she looked at her stone of farspeech, she kept it beside her on the kitchen counter. On the table on the front porch. On her desk as she worked. She just kept hoping beyond hope it would ring, even if he called only to tell her that last night was a drunken mistake. She couldn’t help but feel like everything that had happened between them since she fed her journals to Fisher was a mistake. Over and over and over. Why couldn’t she just learn to let go? 

She filled out two forms with two hands, so focused on her quills that her mind couldn’t even wander to think about Magnus. As she dipped her quills into her dual inkwells, her stone suddenly rang. She knocked one of the wells over as she jumped and a pool of black ruined one of the papers before her. She couldn’t have cared less. 

She grabbed the stone up quickly and answered it, praying he’d be on the other end. “Hello?” 

“Hey, Lucretia. It’s Magnus,” he said, as if she didn’t already know. Her heart plummeted at the lack of enthusiasm in this voice. 

“Hi. How are you?” 

He chuckled a little. “Uh, hungover. But I’m alright.” When she didn’t say anything, he cleared his throat. “Listen, about last night--” 

“It’s fine. Really, I get it.” 

“No, I--” 

She closed her eyes and leaned back into her chair. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. We don’t have to talk about it.” 

He paused. “I… I want to talk about it.” 

She opened her eyes in surprise. “You do?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You want to talk about last night, or…” 

“Well, no, I mean, everything. I guess.” 

Her stomach twisted in equal parts joy, anxiety, and dread. The last time they had tried to talk about everything, or anything, for that matter, he’d wound up weeping over Julia on Taako’s front porch. At the time, it had felt as though there was no hope of reconciling that love with the love they had once shared, in another life. Another time. It still felt that way now. But still, they had to try. The space between them was draining the life from her. She thought that she would have learned to live without him by now, in their ten years apart, but it’d only stretched her heart thin enough to walk as a tightrope. And now, she was teetering atop it, no net below to catch her. 

“Okay. We can do that.” 

“But like you said, I think it should happen in person.” 

“Yes, sure.” 

“I was, uh, gonna head to Neverwinter tomorrow morning, so if you want to meet sometime at night…?” 

It wasn’t like him to sound so stiff, but things had changed. She kept trying to remind herself of that. Things  _ had  _ changed. Radically. Irreversibly. No flask full of ichor could change that. 

“That would be fine. We can meet at my apartment. Thank you, Magnus.” 

When he spoke again, a small smile had lifted his voice. “Hey, am I meeting with Madam Director, or Lucretia?” 

She laughed, soft and true. “Well, I left my dress robes on the moon, so Lucretia will have to do.” 

“Great. I like her better, anyway.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” 

She set the stone down, gazing at her pile of ruined paperwork. The call that should have soothed her nerves had only made her more anxious. 

It was so good to hear his voice. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haello haello waelcome to my diaelogue caeve, sorry I can't write anything but walls of DIALOGUE!!!!

He turned up at her door the next night with a plate of macarons. “Lup’s actually,” he said. She knew in one bite anyway; dark chocolate with a sting of something spicy that lingered afterwards. She led him to the kitchen and set the plate down between them as he sat opposite her at the kitchen counter. She offered him a cup of tea and he accepted.

It was silent for a moment as they sipped. She wasn't used to the uncomfortable space between them. 

Magnus was the one to break the silence. “It's good to see you.” 

“You too.” 

“I, um..” He ran a hand through his hair, then laughed. “There's no easy way to start this conversation, is there?” 

She smiled sadly. She felt tired already. “Yeah. I don't know. You’ve been on my mind. I was glad you wanted to talk.”

“I guess… uh… I mean, we kinda talked about it before but not at length. And there’s so much that I want to say, and I’ve got no idea how to say it, and I don’t know. We were… together. For a long time. A reeeally long time.” 

All she could do was make a noise of confirmation. 

“And those years, they were… good. I mean, they were bad, they were really, really bad sometimes. But having you through it all, it made it better. And there are so many times I remember… that last night at the bar, the first time I kissed you,” he laughed, looking down. She smiled too. “The beach. The conservatory and Fisher and… it was good. We were good.” 

“Yeah,” she said softly. “He loved you.” 

“And I loved him. And I loved you.” 

Her heart leapt into her throat, but it manifested as a knot. Hearing him say it was rain on barren lands. Light after so much dark. But it was past tense. 

Her voice was so faint when she spoke. “I loved you too.” 

He paused, ruminating on the words for a moment. “And I don’t… When we talked at Taako and Lup’s place a while ago, I told you that I don’t know how to reconcile that with with Julia.” The way he kept his voice steady told her he’d rehearsed this a hundred times already. “And I’m not gonna lie, I’m still trying to.” 

“That’s okay.” 

“But I guess looking back on those days now, it’s confusing, because of the memories and all… And I’m also trying to reconcile the person I was in those ten years with the person I was for a hundred years. And it’s hard to do that.” 

“I understand.” 

“There’s so much that complicates this. You have to meet me in the middle there.” 

“I know.” 

“I want to talk about it with you, not just talk at you.” 

She stiffened her spine, trying to ready herself for the worst. “What do you want to talk about?” 

“I mean, first, that night, at the Chug ‘n’ Squeeze,” he said, testing the waters. Dread overcame her instantly. “I don’t know what to think. You  _ knew,  _ Lucretia.” 

“I’m not proud of it. It was a moment of indiscretion. It was so hard to be so close to you and not feel how I’ve felt for a century.” 

“I.. yeah. I know.” 

“It was just so much to be alone with you and I was drunk and I missed you so much. And you were hurting and scared and I was--” She stopped abruptly, eyes wide and darting to everywhere in the room but his face. “Lonely. And I knew you didn’t trust me, you had no reason to, and I just thought that…” 

“I don’t… I don’t  _ get  _ it, Lucretia.” There was some kind of sting to the sound of her full name. 

“What?” 

“I don’t get why you did that. Like, yeah, I walked into that too and I knew what I was doing but I didn’t know it was  _ you.” _

A spark of self-defense flickered inside her. “I just told you why.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just that. I don’t know. That combined with the other things… You haven’t even told me what you spent that decade doing? But what I do know… you went to Wonderland, you left that guy  _ behind,  _ you… you built a second  _ moon?  _ You worked with the Millers and they were… They were doing a lot of stuff that the Lucretia I knew wouldn’t agree with. I don’t know.” 

_ Knew?  _ “What do you mean  _ knew?  _ I’m still me, I’ve always been me. And yeah, it didn’t all go according to plan, but I kept my eyes on my goal the whole time. I got you all back, didn’t I? I did everything I had to.” She was speaking louder, jumping to her own defense, trying so hard to justify herself. 

“I… I’m not saying it didn’t work, I just don’t understand why you did what you did, starting with erasing us. I just… you’re a different person now, and I don’t understand you. And it really hurts.” 

She could feel herself hardening, trying to protect herself from the damage he was beginning to inflict. The same old regret that’d lingered for all this time swelled and demanded her attention. She considered breaking her heart in advance, just to prevent the impending hurt that was sure to come as soon as he spoke again.

“Is this what you came all this way to tell me?” 

He swallowed, taking pause to collect his thoughts. “No. This isn’t really how I was planning to start off.” 

“Well, maybe you should have stuck to your original plan. If you don’t want to see me, then don’t.” 

“Luce, come on. That’s not what I’m saying.” 

“I-- I know what I did was terrible, Magnus. I know that it tore you all apart, and that decade was… wrought with heartache and mistakes I wish I could have prevented. But I…” She stopped to steady her voice. “I was alone. I didn’t have anything familiar or anyone who knew me. I was hurting too. I wish they understood that. I wish  _ you  _ understood that.” 

“I understand what it's like to have nobody and nothing. We all do.”

She looked away to hide the trembling of her lip. Of course he knew; how could she be so stupid? Of course this was happening. Of course this was how it was going to go.  _ Of course  _ he hadn’t forgiven her. Her family would never forget how she took everything from them. How could she have ever believed he would? She had to push him away, for both of their sakes. “I was so  _ foolish   _ to believe that you would let it go. I knew you'd never forgive me.” 

“I did. Why do you think I didn't?” 

“Because you're still angry! You-- you sound like Taako with the accusations. I know what I did, you don't have to remind me too!”

He brushed off the comment about Taako. “I'm not-- I'm not being accusatory, I'm just  _ telling you  _ that I get what it feels like. That doesn't mean I haven’t forgiven you.”

“I mean, why would you bother? You’re gonna choose him every time.” 

Magnus couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “When have I  _ ever  _ chosen him over you? You were my partner all that time, Taako was… on and off, to say the least. It was always complicated. Us, we weren’t complicated, at least not ‘til now.” 

She thought about how much time he’d spent with Taako in the year and a half they’d spent as her reclaimers. How she knew by the way they looked at each other, by the gentle touch of Magnus’s hand on Taako’s back, or the way Taako tucked his hair behind his ear when Magnus spoke, that they were sleeping together again. The tiniest tics of body language were a decades-old dialect she’d learned to translate on her own. Some things didn’t fade with time. 

The way Magnus had immediately jumped to Taako’s side when they’d remembered haunted her. She had never imagined it that way; she’d been dreaming of the day she’d bring Magnus home and hand him the ichor and melt back into his arms as she always had, time after time after time. It’d hadn’t been the loving embrace she’d expected. She had considered the possibility of retaliation from any of the others, but never from him. 

The shock was still wearing off, she supposed. 

She drew herself from her thoughts and tried her hardest to rail against his rationale. “You were the one who sided with him, sword drawn and all!” 

He raised his voice, and it shook her. “No, now don’t even go there, you know that was before we even--” 

“It doesn't matter. It happened. And now you’re all having family dinners without me and I don’t know what they’re all saying about me, but I know it’s not good. I know they hate me now and I  _ get it  _ and I don’t blame you for choosing them but in that case, forgiveness is near impossible.”

“Can you  _ please _ listen to me? I’m not  _ choosing  _ anyone. And forgiveness isn’t impossible because I  _ already forgave you.”  _

“No, you didn’t!” she said sharply. “You couldn’t and you can’t and you  _ didn’t _ , or you wouldn’t do this.” 

“Alright, just because you have some  _ complex  _ about how we all hate you doesn’t mean that it’s true. I don’t hate you, and I forgave you, and I came here to  _ talk to you _ and all you want to do is fight.” 

“You think I  _ want  _ to fight?” For a moment, she was aware of how ironic it was to shout those words. “You’re the one who called me when you were drunk, you’re the one who was at Taako’s with everyone else except me, and you’re the one who’s telling me that everything I did was wrong. I know it was wrong! I know I fucked up, Magnus, I--! You think I wanted to be away from you for  _ ten years?”  _

“You think  _ I  _ wanted to be away from  _ you  _ for ten years? You didn’t even tell me, Luce.” His voice fell as it broke. “Next thing I knew I was on the floor looking up at someone I didn’t even recognize. How do you think that felt to remember? That you just-- you just threw it away?” 

She shut her eyes. He was right. She had thrown it away, and this is what she deserved for it. Despite the defeat, she found herself still teetering on the defensive. “It was only supposed to be a year! You think I would have done this if I’d known how terrible it would be?” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

She scoffed, fighting tears. “You think I could have just  _ told you  _ and you would have been fine with it?” 

“You think it was okay to just do that to me? To us? How would you feel if I just erased myself from you?” 

She couldn’t even fathom it. She couldn’t remember a time where she hadn’t held half of his heart within her own. But she could see it on his face: he was hurting, and it was all her fault. Not only the betrayal and the decade apart and the night they’d spent together on the moonbase, but all the other terrible things that had happened to him, too. Julia. Raven’s Roost. Phandalin. Wonderland. “Well, maybe you should.” 

“Lucretia--” 

She hardened herself in preparation for the wound that was about to come. She gathered up the courage to say, “I already lived without you for ten years. I think can do it again.” 

“Stop it.” 

“No, it’s the fucking truth, Magnus. I’ll be fine without you.” 

The crack in her voice stopped him completely. He could only stare at her, his mouth pressed into a hard line. She knew immediately that she’d hurt him deeper than she’d meant to. But maybe it’d be better this way; he could move on, and she wouldn’t have to keep hoping beyond hope that he’d take her back. Separation would hurt less than picking the wound open over and over every time he came around. It was easy to ignore it when she was throwing herself into her work. She would survive.

He looked away and a sudden pang of panic burned through her core, her stubborn confidence in her independence turning to ash.

She wouldn’t be fine without him and she knew it. 

When he didn’t say anything else, she turned away from him. She knew this silence; she sucked in a long breath and bottled it down inside her with the rest of the festering loneliness and self-loathing and terrible grief. With the joys of yesterday and the love she could never have back. Not after this. But maybe it’d be better now, just knowing the truth. She could let go of the delusion that she’d clung to that they’d ever return to what they’d once been. After all, they couldn’t return to who they once were. 

“I’m sorry you wasted the trip.” 

“Lucretia.” 

She whipped around to face him. “Stop! Stop saying my name.” The sound made her ache; after this, she wouldn’t hear it anymore. 

She remembered that last night before they’d departed on the Starblaster, when he had called her Lucy and she had kissed his cheek, She ran a hand over her face. 

“Don’t end it like this, please, I mean, a hundred--” 

“What is there to end?” she cried. Finally, tears came. “We’re not together. I haven’t seen you in months. What difference does it make? Why do you even care?”

There were tears in his eyes too. “What did I do to make you think I don’t care about you?” 

She tried to find something to say, but there was nothing. He hadn’t done anything. Even when they weren’t together or weren’t speaking, she couldn’t remember a time where she felt like he didn’t care about her. He didn’t deserve this end. But she didn’t deserve his care, or his forgiveness.

“We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen, okay? We need to talk about it. That’s why I came all this way to see you, because we can’t keep avoiding conversations ‘cause they’re hard. That’s my bad, that’s on me for dragging this out because of my own stuff I just can’t seem to handle. But I’m trying really hard, and I need you to give me something. I can’t do it alone, and neither can you. You don’t  _ have  _ to do everything  _ alone _ anymore.”  

“I can’t give you that that right now.” 

It seemed as though he’d finally accepted defeat. “Alright.” 

His acceptance sent her spinning just as hard, opposite of the spiral she’d been going down to push him away. She wanted to speak but she couldn’t. 

“I’m… gonna go. If you want to talk again, just let me know.” 

“Magnus--” 

“I don’t think we should keep having this conversation.” He sounded so removed all at once. The tears were gone from his eyes in an instant. “I think it’d be better for you if I left right now.” 

“I didn’t mean…” 

“It’s okay. I still love you.” 

Her heart shattered. He looked so tired. 

She didn’t deserve that kind of love. And she knew, in that moment, that he had forgiven her a long time ago. He was wiser than the man she’d walked to Raven’s Roost. He was right; she had changed so much, but so had he. But it seemed he was the only one who’d changed for the better.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and a tiny sob broke through the tightness of her throat. “I don’t want you to remember me like this. This isn’t how I wanted this to go.” 

He walked to her and kissed the top of her head.

“I know. I think this was too soon. We can try again when we’re ready.” 

He gathered his things and walked to the door without another word, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob.

She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. She stood frozen in place as he opened the door. 

“I’ll see you later, Lucy.” 

She couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye. 


	4. Chapter 4

A few weeks later, she had Carey and Killian over for dinner. “Likin’ the temporary digs, boss,” Carey commented, walking through the apartment. Lucretia had moved a few times in the rebuilding year, trying to stay close to where she needed to be. She could have stayed on the moon base once it’d been repaired, but she’d spent enough lonely time up there over the past few years. If she had to be alone, she figured she may as well be around strangers.

It didn’t feel too different from the Bureau anyway, in that sense.

They ate together quietly. Lucretia had been retreating more into herself, and the women noticed. Luckily, Killian was able to draw some laughter out of Lucretia, talking about the humor and joy they had found in doing some light (or in Killian’s case, heavy) construction work. Sometimes they’d help with the projects Magnus was working on at Raven’s Roost, but they didn’t talk about that. Lucretia hadn’t told them about the fight, but she didn’t have to. She was sure Magnus had already spoken with Carey about it.

As the couple prepared to head out, Carey murmured something to Killian, who then said a brief goodbye to Lucretia and walked out the door.

“Uh, hey boss.” Carey had her hands wrapped nervously around a sealed envelope. “Mags asked me to give this to ya. Said it'd be faster than snail mail.”

Lucretia’s heart twisted at the mention of his name. With the cool distance of Madam Director suddenly seizing her tone, she simply said, “thank you, Carey,” and took the envelope from her outstretched hand.

“No prob. Hey, I, uh… he didn't tell me much, but he told me enough. He's havin’ a tough time with everything, y’know? And you probably are too. Sorry, I'm not trying to hit you with some unsolicited advice, but just-- I don't know. Take it a day at a time, I guess.”

“Sure.”

Carey sighed. “Give us a call if you ever wanna grab a bite, or check out the new digs. We’ve been missin’ you since the library finished up. Lots of good places to eat in the city…”

Lucretia nodded politely. She wasn't going to call. “I'll let you know.”

“Alright. Well, thanks for having us.”

“Any time.”

Carey, who’d never been much of a hugging person, pulled the taller woman into a quick embrace. “See ya soon, Mada-- Lucretia.” She corrected herself with an apologetic smile.

She opened the door for Carey and the women left, leaving Lucretia alone once again. She gazed down at the envelope in her hands. There was her name, scrawled in blue ink across the cream-colored paper. She sighed and climbed the stairs up to her office.

She settled into her usual spot in her swiveling leather chair and leaned back. She stared at the envelope and noticed the way it almost seemed to stare back. Her eyes squeezed shut. The thought of what the letter inside would read made her feel sick. A piece of her wished for her Voidfish back, if not for anything but to feed the letter to it after reading so she might forget the inevitable emotional death blow that it held.

Her eyes fluttered open and all at once she learned forward and took the letter from the desk. She tore the top open, pulled the letter from the envelope, and held it there, folded, in her trembling hands.

She wasn’t strong enough, but she had to be. That much had been the thread that held the previous years together. It’d have to keep her together now.

She thumbed the page open and gazed down at the words, eyes unfocused. He’d written a lot. Much more than he usually would. Her stomach flipped with dread.

But she had to do this. She had to get it over with so she could… so she could _what?_ Have closure? Move on? That wouldn’t happen. She would always be dreaming of tomorrow, of another reunion and a vile of ichor that could make him remember who they used to be. Every night since they’d argued, she slept restlessly, tossing in and out of murky dreams that she never remembered. But they felt so real. She’d recall only the spread of her hands over the warmth of his back, or the flutter of her heart as he spoke long-lost words, or the cloak of thick red that concealed them both in a time capsule, a century old.

She inhaled, silenced her spinning thoughts, then sighed. It was time to face the consequences for the accumulation of her mistakes.

_Lucretia,_

_I’ve been thinking a lot since we talked. I’m sorry it didn’t go better. I kind of feel like that was on me. I might have pushed too far, or had that conversation too soon. I should have waited until I’d sorted myself out first before I tried sorting us out. But I guess I just missed you._

_I don’t know where to start, still. It’s not easy trying to figure out where I’m at and where you’re at and trying to put it all together. I was trying to, at your place, but I think it’s going to take more than that, because it didn’t go well for either of us._

_To be honest, I’m writing you because of how that night went. I’ll take the blame for it. But we can’t leave things where they were and just expect it to fix itself, or just disappear completely. I guess it’d be easier that way, but it wouldn’t be right. This is hard for me. But I know it’s even harder for you. I wish I knew how to say the right things to make it not hurt so much, because you were always really good at doing that for me. But I’m bad at it and it doesn’t help any of this._

_I have a lot to work out. Things are complicated with memories, and with Taako, and with everyone else, and with Julia… Being home in Raven’s Roost makes it even harder, sometimes. But I’m trying really hard, I promise._

_I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need you to try, too. I know that it’s difficult to grapple with all the mixed up things that happened. I know that so many of them were bad things. And I hate that the world has hurt you so much, and that you hurt so much by trying to save the rest of us. We’re all still stuck in our own heads about how much we’re hurting that we didn’t stop to consider how much you were hurting, too. It must have been really lonely. I know that even when I didn’t know who you were, I was lonely too._

_I know you’re used to carrying your problems alone. But that’s over now, Lucretia. I think you need to find somewhere where you can put those things down and start to feel better. I don’t know what that means for you. I don’t know what it means for me, either. But I don’t think we can be that place for each other, at least not right now._

_And I’m not saying that we can’t be, later. I’m just not sure where I’m at right now with us. That door isn’t closed, but it’s not a door I can walk through yet, either. I’m sorry that I still need more time. I guess I got used to having all the time in the world._

_I meant what I said, that it’s okay, and I still love you. I do. And I want you in my life. Don’t doubt that, because I know you will, and you still probably are right now._

_If space is what you need, you got it. But if you want to reach out, I’m here._

_Magnus_

_P.S. I found this while we were starting the cleanup at the moonbase. I figured it might make you smile._

She hastily wiped tears from her eyes and grabbed the envelope again, finding a half-charred piece of cardstock inside. One of her old drawings, which she’d kept locked away in a drawer of her desk within her private office. She’d thought that most of the old things she’d had in there were gone. After their reunion had gone poorly, she hadn’t really tried to recover the remaining mementos. What would she need them for now?

It was a drawing of herself and Magnus, sitting together in the mirror in her room. She’d made him come close and sit patiently with her so she could immortalize them in pencil, then ink, together. He was looking at her sideways, wearing that crooked smile. And she was smiling, too, small but fond, as he held her close beside him.  

She thumbed over the blackened corner of the paper through her tears. A sob tightened her throat, but a smile reflected from the page touched her lips.

Now wasn’t the right time. But there was a chance. And as much as she hated to keep holding onto those chances, she afforded herself one last hope that maybe, just maybe, they’d make their way back to each other again.

She leaned the drawing against an empty mug on the desk, then folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. After tucking it safely away in her top drawer (between years-old mementos she’d kept safe in her quarters- an old wooden duck, painted in a red robe, and a small purple journal that Taako had given her on a long-forgotten birthday) she leaned back into her chair and folded her hands. For the first time in a long time, the tears she cried were dominated by relief, instead of by anguish.

There was work to be done. Not only in the world, but within herself. And the task was daunting. When had it ever not been?

The door was open. That was all she could ask for.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! i wasn't done with this one after all.   
> everyone needs a little merle

In the weeks following the arrival of his letter, Lucretia filled her days with distraction. She worked and traveled and even made time to get lunch with Killian when she was in town. The uncertainty of where she’d left off with Magnus brought little comfort, but at least kept her afloat during otherwise transitory times. 

She seemed to spend most of her time at home at her desk. But instead of spending her hours scrawling endlessly with both hands, she would sit with a cup of tea and let her mind wander. It was nice to find thoughts not exclusive to nightmares that she could dwell in, if only for a few moments. 

She reached out and brushed the drawing of herself and Magnus with a hesitant fingertip. A secret part of herself wished he’d call, but she knew the space between them was for the best. She needed to untangle the mess that had become of her aching heart, and she knew he was right: this was the only way to do that. 

She took the purple journal, yet untouched, from her top drawer and placed it in the center of the desk before her. When she cracked it open, the pinkish corner of Taako’s old stationary peeked from the rest of the yellowish pages. Her heart sank. 

She pulled the note from the journal. 

_ Creesh,  _

_ Happy birthday. If we were still at home, you’d have a foot in the grave by now. But hey, we’re not, and you don’t look a day over 20.  _ _   
_ _ Take a minute to write about yourself for once. _

_ -Taako  _

She pursed her lips, tucked the note back between the pages, and closed the notebook with a curt sigh. That was the only reminder she needed to send her spinning back into a negative thread of thoughts. There was nothing she could write that’d take back what she’d done. She didn’t deserve to mark the pages that were given to her with love in mind. If she couldn’t have that back, why delight in it now?

She swallowed her guilty tears and pondered what to do. She had to do  _ something. _

If she couldn’t write, perhaps she could talk. Her hand found her stone of farspeech and dialed a code long-untouched, but committed to memory.

* * *

 

A few days later, Merle arrived wearing a tacky floral shirt and a smile. “For you,” he nodded, handing her a long, thin box. For a moment she wondered if it was jewelry, but sensing her hesitation, he patted her arm. “Just a gift for the office. No confession of love for ya. You should be so lucky.” 

She rolled her eyes with a small smile and opened the box. A sleek quill with a sharp, snow-white feather stood out from the deep purple velvet that housed it. 

“Oh, Merle, thank you. This is too much--” 

“Now don’t go thankin’ me, I clearly didn’t make it. Mavis picked it out for ya.” 

Lucretia smiled, thinking fondly of Merle’s daughter. She’d spent a day here and there at Bottlenose Cove with Merle and his children. She saw much of her young, quiet self in Mavis. She was glad to know that the girl was just as thoughtful as she’d been at that age. Merle liked to feign ignorance and say that it was inherited from her mother, but Lucretia knew that she’d learned it from Merle as she’d grown, despite the bumps in their relationship. 

She ruminated on the thought as she led him into the kitchen and to his seat at the table. She brought the pot of tea and poured him a cup. He hummed happily under his breath. 

She took her seat across from him at the small table, feeling the ache in her bones. The sadness that’d permeated through every part of her. She knew she was probably killing the mood just by calling him here, but she was sure he knew what to expect, anyway. 

Merle poured a splash of milk in before setting the delicate cup down before him with a chuckle. “Oh, man. No offense, Luce, but you look like shit.” 

She’d expected as much as a conversation starter. The remaining rose-colored liquid drained into her cup as she sighed, hiding a decade-old ghost of a smile. “Could say the same about you, old friend.” 

He cackled. The sound was delightfully familiar. 

“Yeah, well. We’re not like the other kids now, you and me, we’re the old folks. How’s that for a change, huh? Here I was thinkin’ you were gonna be our teenage wallflower for a hundred years.” 

It didn’t hurt to joke about the century with him, or about the Judges, or about Wonderland. He understood, and harbored no ill-will. She meditated on that fact for a moment. She’d been so caught up with everyone else that she’d forgotten that out of everyone, she always felt the most comfortable around Merle. 

“Remember when I had you in lecture, that year before we left?” 

She smirked as she took a sip of tea. “How could I forget? You wrote  _ Professor Merle Hightower  _ on the syllabus. Oh, and you called me Lucinda for half the semester.” 

He raised both arms in surrender. “You know me.” 

They spoke like that for awhile. He didn’t bring up the fighting, or the forgetting, or the rebuilding, or the reason why she’d called him for a visit. They just sat and talked as friends. It’d been so long since she’d reminisced with one of the six. 

Eventually, inevitably, the conversation rolled around to their family and their many points of contention. Despite his best efforts, the topic was incredibly hard to keep light. As he asked about Magnus, she gazed at herself in the tiny, amber reflection of her drink, shimmering in its ceramic cup. Even in miniature, she could see how tired she looked. 

“We’re… I don’t know. We’re in limbo.” She sighed. “There’s been a lot of tension. Not just with us, but… with everyone. You know Taako didn’t invite me to dinner last time.” 

“Ah. I was hopin’ you’d just decided not to come.” 

She shook her head. “I can’t say I would have, necessarily, but finding out about it halfway through the night wasn’t exactly the best feeling. I do suppose I deserve that much, though.” 

“Now, don’t start that game with me.” 

She looked up at him and cocked a brow. “Sorry?” 

“This, ‘oh, woe is me, I deserve all this ‘cause I suck, blah, blah.’” He spoke with his hands, pitching up his voice to imitate her. “I know it works with Mags, but it won’t work with me.” 

His response rendered her silent, both brows halfway up her forehead. “I-- I mean--” 

“Let’s start with this: you don’t deserve that much. Taako, he’s hurtin’, but he’s also being an ass. He’s good at that. That’s nothing new.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his soulwood hand with his other over his stomach. “There’s work to be done there, but man, the wound’s fresh. Let that one get some air for a bit before you go pickin’ at it, huh?” 

“Yes, I suppose.” 

“As for Magnus, he seems like he’s doin’ better. At least a little bit. Being around that stupid mutt seems to be doing wonders, anyway.” 

Her heart fluttered and sank at the same time. “He got a dog?” 

He hadn’t mentioned that in the letter. And he hadn’t called to let her know. (She’d always felt a little guilty about not letting him have a dog on the moonbase, but there was no one around to take care of an animal while he was gone. And it was true-- they really would just run off the damn thing.) 

“Yeah, just a week or two ago.” And so, her heart lifted a little. That was long after he’d written her. “Just a pup. Never seen him so happy, maybe not since that plane chock full of ‘em.” 

Lucretia smiled, remembering the wheeze of joy that’d burst from him when they’d touched down on a new material existence inhabited exclusively by dogs. It hadn’t been the most glamorous year, but it was one of the happiest, if for nothing else but the smile that lit his face every day. She’d fallen in love with him again that year. 

She took a sip, then set her tea down with a small clink that cut the silence between them. “Do you ever wish we could go back, Merle?” 

To her surprise, he snorted. “Hell no!” 

“Really?” 

“Not at aaaall, sis. No ma’am. The life we got here, all things considered? It’s pretty damn good. I mean, I’m an earl!  _ Earl Merle.  _ Sound’s good, dunnit?” 

She nodded, unsure of how to proceed. 

“Lup and Barry got jobs with a  _ goddess,  _ Magnus is doin’ whatever the hell he’s always talkin’ about with his rustic hospitality shit, Dav’s out sailing the seas, you’re rebuilding the whole damn world, and Taako’s basically a superstar. Why would you trade that to go back to runnin’ from the Hunger, never knowing when it would end? Or if it would end at all?” 

“I-- I guess I just-- oh, I don’t know, Merle…” she trailed off. “If we went back, I could keep myself from hurting you all so much. I could do it all right the first time, and maybe we’d all still be--” 

“I’m gonna stop you right there. The six of us aside, you do realize you saved the whole damn world, right?” 

She avoided his gaze and instead carefully refilled both of their cups of tea with a practiced mage hand. 

“Seems to me that you’re hell-bent on saving all of us, too. But you can’t. Do you realize that?” 

“I’m not trying to save everyone, I’m trying to fix what I did.” 

He nodded, stirring another splash of milk into his tea. “Uh-huh. And how exactly do you plan to do that?” 

“I-- I--” she stammered, then closed her mouth. 

“Right. It’s not gonna happen that way, Lucretia. ‘Cause you wanna fix what you did, but ya can’t. It’s not something that you can change now, no matter how bad you wish ya could.”

“But I can make up for--” 

“Can you?” 

If the question had come from anyone else, it would have been unkind. But Merle was chuckling. The same knowing glint that had always lit the crinkle of his eyes was still there. 

Maybe she hadn’t taken everything from them, after all. 

“I’ll answer that one for ya. You can’t. And you won’t. So there’s no use in trying to repair that bridge now, ‘cause it won’t work. But what you  _ can  _ do is try to build something new.” 

She set her tea down in its saucer and leaned back in her seat, taking in the weight of his words. She knew all at once that he was right. 

Merle blew on his tea, then slurped it. Sometimes she wondered if he even understood the weight of the things he told people. But as he looked up and offered a smile, she was sure he did. 

“Merle, have you ever thought about writing a book?” she asked, a tiny smile playing with the corner of her mouth. 

He waved his soulwood arm dismissively. “Ehh, already did it, sister. You wrote it all down, remember?” 

The sound of his chuckle made her heart swell. And she laughed too. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d just…  _ laughed _ . 

“Yes, I do.”

* * *

 

When Merle had gone, she returned to her office once again and took her seat. She hesitated for just a moment before she took the purple journal, slipped Taako’s note from the pages, and tucked it into the top drawer beside the envelope from Magnus. 

She opened to the first page, dipped the new quill into her inkwell, and wrote. 


End file.
